amum/Cathy

Oops. Help - why do my website links put the whole video on here??

All of it! The cygnets were very together and precise. So too the Spanish dancers (admitting prejudice here!). Swans were magical. Tsar's nieces and nephews a very promising bunch of dancers, Princesses and older and younger mariinsky dancers, Stage Hands, etc etc etc, all brilliant. I think the choreography is sooo clever to bring out the performing talents of the children, who may have a huge variation in levels of training. Just to mention the cygnets' dance. There is a clip on Youtube somewhere of Darcey Bussell coaching some white lodge students in the cygnets dance, and commenting on how difficult it is to get the exact precise co-ordination of the dancers. It is a very unforgiving dance - yet Julianne's choreography, and the attention to every little detail of their movements the girls gave, resulted in an amazing dance Found the link

Ooops Not sure why that posted the video itself rather than the link, and I don't know how to change it now

Found another clip, this time of the 5 junior boys rehearsing

Ditto! I'm resorting to watching the tiny sky extract http://tyneandwear.sky.com/events/article/18056 until that DVD arrives. We are all very tired this morning after the high of yesterday Well done to everyone. I thought the quality of the production and the dancing was fantastic!

We haven't had one, but ds didn't need a licence for this.

I'm so sorry she didn't get an MDS wilderflower. For some families the bursaries can work out better financially so I hope there's still a chance she can take up her place. Keep us posted. Congratulations. Great news. I love the story of your dh ambushing the postie at the start of his round!

Ben is hoping that Channel 5 will film the "green courtiers" at the theatre Tuesday morning, to show on Channel 5 Tuesday evening sometime. Hope this comes off. Ticket sales need a boost, as it is tricky getting people to come the first 2 days of the summer term - so come on and get your tickets to see this new EYB ballet!

Hothouse kids was the name of the radio 4 programme - here is a link to a brief summary on Deborah Bull's website http://www.deborahbull.com/radio/hothouse-kids/

Right I bought Deborah Bull's book The Everyday Dancer for my kindle last night. Takes about 2 hours to read. She doesn't talk about the 10,000 hours in it, but she does mention having overseas dancers in the corps de ballet as a new problem for ballet companies, where they used to have their own schooled dancers. Essentially she implies that her era of RBS trained dancers learnt the dances (and solos) for the classical ballets while at the Upper School and were pulled into the company for performaces through their graduate year, which meant they were well known and could be offered places in the company thereafter. This also meant they didn't have much new choreography to learn for the company classics so they could be called on to cover alot of roles at short notice. However with the intake of overseas dancers there is more need to rehearse the corps de ballet as they may have learnt completely different choreography overseas ( I am always amazed how different a Russian company's version of the classics can be from a British one's so I can see what she means). She mentions the European Union and ease of travel as a factor in the higher numbers of imported dancers. She doesn't really cover the ground she talked about in her radio series about overseas training differences and ages etc, except briefly in passing. The book really is about the structure of a classical dancer's day - class, rehearsal and performing.

Don't know - but I keep meaning to buy her new book I think essentially she said the UK dancers get there in the end - but these overseas dancers will always be ahead of them as they started younger or trained more hours at the younger ages so get to their 10,000 hours sooner

On an even more facetious point I remember thinking this when watching Hull schoolboy Liam Mower, one of the first 3 Billys in Billy Elliot! I never saw any other Billy better his performance

Yes I've got this as well - bought it for my kindle but then wanted to lend it to everyone so went out and bought a paper copy as well I seem to remember a discussion on the old forum about a radio programme by Deborah Bull where she discussed the difference between our UK kids and the overseas trained kids. Essentially she seemed to think it came down to this 10,000 hours of practice/training concept. As Malcom Gladwell said in Outliers, before Matthew Syed's book, 10,000 hours practice is the time needed to become good/expert etc in something. They complete the 10,000 hours of dance training at a younger age in Korea, Russia, China etc. But she recognised that it didn't do the child's emotional wellbeing much good all the same

That was great to watch. Thanks for posting. Well done to the Dartford performers. Hope it goes well. Looking forward to Newcastle as well

Good Luck to everyone for the funding audition today and to any others hoping to hear of funding.

Speaking as one of the members who posts most in Doing Dance, I do find it intimidating to venture into the other forums. I have posted in the past on the wrong subforum and found myself quite confused when I have been (gently) corrected and my thread redirected. It is the Whats Happening and News threads that are very tricky to differentiate for those who don't post there often, the distinctions between them are too subtle!.I am echoing Anjuli_Bai on this one. I appreciate that a combined forum for them may seem to have too many current threads to keep track of. Is there a way of overcoming this?

If anyone's going tomorrow then good luck Would like to hear how many are at the audition and what sort of age spread, if possible? Ds very keen to know

I had a good read of the report this afternoon. It is here http://www.dcms.gov.uk/images/publications/Cultural_Education_report.pdf Page 52 and 53 recommend that DADAs continue but there is a somewhat worrying comment about them not being means tested, implying I think, that they should be for those young people who could not otherwise afford to go. Well I can understand that but a lot of families don't prioritise dance training and I think this gives the students a bit of independence from their families when it comes to chosing to go into dance. Knowing they can get some funds without begging their family to pay for everything is vital. These are the students looking for 16+ training whose familes may already have decided they couldn't afford to pay vocational school fees up to 16, even with an MDS award. Still it sounds like good news for DADAs

Hammond Associates - Boys Audition Sat 3rd March 2pm It isn’t too late to register for this audition on Saturday. Boys aged 9-15 years only. I think the girls classes are remaining full so I don’t think there will be any girls’ auditions this year. The audition is usually a ballet class. I assume it will be the same on Saturday. There are 3 Sundays a term – usually one a month. The day is from 10.30 am to 3.45pm with 4 classes and a break to eat a packed lunch. The scheme used to be called Hammond dance associates but they are now called Hammond performing arts associates to reflect that the mix of classes include drama, and singing some months, as well as a mixture of dance styles. There is always a ballet class, then another 3 classes that may be pilates, jazz, contemporary, creative, musical theatre, street, ballet virtuosity, and drama and singing. Last year they also had Irish and Spanish dance. Since September they have been had one Sunday a term as a workshop day and the parents can then come to the school theatre for the last hour to watch all the groups perform the pieces they worked on. Last term it was musical theatre and there were pieces from Joseph, Saturday Night Fever and Footloose. Next month they are doing a workshop based on street and contemporary. From the school website - Saturday 3rd March 2012 - HPAA audition begins at 2.00pm. BOYS ONLY. Aged 9 - 15 years. For details please call 01244 305350 Edited to correct some font problems -although I'm not sure it has worked

Lots of lovely news. Well done all 3. C4D what a great week for your dd!

Congratulations to your dds for their cygnet and marinsky dancer parts rachaelballet12, amber21 and emsloves2dance and welcome to balletco emsloves2dance The plot thickens - nieces and nephews of the Tzar and marinsky dancers - all very intriguing....

I've really enjoyed your thoughts above Buddy. It will be interesting to see what direction Hockney goes next. He looks to be so full of enthusiasm and energy, thank goodness. I read one commentator's thoughts on the exhibition in which he was quite scathing about the dance film section at the end and, by association, Hockney's previous forays into the performing arts. Wish I could remember where I read it...

Thank you so much for posting Balletmum1972 That's really interesting to hear. Well done to your dd for getting her Sleeping Beauty place as well - lovely that she has that to look forward to when Swan Lake is over. So do you know which music she is dancing her 3 dances to then? We have been playing the Spanish dance music non stop in this house since tuesday, but of course we have no idea what music they will use for his courtier dances... So pleased for Charlie C4D, well done on being a cygnet really looking forward to it now....

Buddy I’m sooo pleased someone else on here has been to see this exhibition and can understand my ravings. I too bought the catalogue (although it was for my father who was at Bradford Grammar School with David Hockney), and found the names of the dancers in there. The only one I recognised at the time of watching was McRae. I didn’t even notice Wayne Sleep – my son had to tell me he was there! I hadn’t thought about the speed changes effect that you describe, and I love that you said even the landscape films danced, thank you for those thoughts. I think I will look out for the Conversations book. The catalogue didn’t talk about the choreography aspect or give information about the dance clips other than the list of dancers, as far as I could see. My father may well be interested in the Conversations book as well. Have you seen the latest biography of Hockney by Christopher Sykes? Beryl I so hope you enjoy it. I remember feeling this pure aesthetic pleasure as I went round the exhibition, with a smile on my face. It is that feeling you get when you are safely in your seat after all the expense and stress of getting to the theatre, your shoulders go down, you breathe out, the overture has played and the curtains open on a performance by the Bolshoi or the Kirov. I don’t know a purer pleasure! Buddy I hope you are right about Hockney wandering over to the RB to talk to Wayne McGregor...

How did Charlie get on C4D? Thought I spotted her - was she wearing an Elmhurst Associates hoody? A is a courtier and is doing the Spanish dance with "some girls" and 2 other boys - D and H who both did Coppelia. The older and taller 5 boys are split between Hungerian and Russian dances. We know a younger boy who is a nephew of the Tzar. We know nothing about the girls' dances except there are SWANS!